


It Happened One Night

by winterwatercolour



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gay Keith (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Keith/Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) is a Dork, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining Keith (Voltron), Romantic Angst, Romantic Fluff, Sickfic, and keith fell hard, basically keith coming to terms with his sexuality and realising he loves Lance, kinda he doesn't realise he is, until now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-15 01:13:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11795352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterwatercolour/pseuds/winterwatercolour
Summary: Keith’s idea of love had always been through a screen. Never real, processed and filtered through a Hollywood lens.Then there was Lance.He’d seen him before, he’d simply been in the background of his life. Lance was just there, sitting around with his class at the Garrison. Just fading in to the background in Keith’s eyes. But now Lance was all he could see.No Hollywood movie could ever explain how Keith felt about Lance.(Keith tries to reevaluate his opinion of love and come to terms with his sexuality, while trying to understand his own feelings, hint, he's in love)





	It Happened One Night

**Author's Note:**

> This was yet another prompt fill and i was so inspired to this oh my god..This fic is basically just an exploration of Keith's experience (or lack of) with love and how that evolves and changes when he meets Lance! Here Keith is coming to terms and trying to understand his feelings, until he comes to a conclusion!
> 
> hello! you're blog is so cute i love it!!! tbh you're such a good writer it makes me cry. could you please do a fic describing keith's emotions (or lack thereof) when allura fell in his arms vs his emotions when lance literally just touched his shoulder?

Keith’s idea of love had always been through a screen. Never real, processed and filtered through a Hollywood lens.

He’d had a taste of love when his classmate Lucy gave him a card cut out like a heart for Valentine’s Day in kindergarten, but he didn’t feel anything at all. But Keith couldn’t quite help but feel a little warm and fuzzy when his classmate James let him help him build his sandcastle.

But for the most part, Keith never really understood what it was. Teachers at school always explained it was what mommy and daddy felt for each other, but he didn’t have that. How could he know what he didn’t have? Keith told himself that maybe he just wasn’t wired to have it, that not all boys get to have it, and that was okay. You can’t miss what you never had.

But Keith was curious. He wondered what it would feel like. He wondered what all his classmates were crazy about, why all the girls would squeal over their crushes picking petals off flowers and why all the boys tried and competed to find ways to get the girl. It was something Keith just didn’t get, something that wasn’t on his radar.

He would watch romance films on the TV, watch as a boy and girl fell in love in a whimsical journey. He watched as boys burst into song about how happy they felt, how in love they were in the rain. He’d watch girls sing quietly to themselves about how smitten and complete they would feel, the devotion they felt to another human being. To Keith, it didn’t didn’t feel real at all. He could only shrug and move on. It just wasn’t for him.

Then there was Lance.

Lance came swooping in one day, a complete surprise that he had said he didn’t need and certainly didn’t want, but now, more than anything, needed, and desperately wanted. It was funny how time changed things.

He’d seen him before, he’d simply been in the background of his life. Lance was just there, sitting around with his class at the Garrison. Just fading in to the background in Keith’s eyes. But now Lance was all he could see.

No Hollywood movie could ever explain how Keith felt about Lance.

It had all happened too fast. Keith didn’t even know where the transition from you are the most annoying person I’ve ever met to you’ve given me something to believe in was. There is something about Lance’s very essence that makes him feel at home. Something about Lance that grounds him back to earth when he feels like he is floating away, out of reach for good.

There was nothing like Lance’s smile, subtle, perfect and real.

Now Lance is in front of him and he isn’t smiling, he’s fevered and sick and just not his Lance. Not his sweet, lively Lance who walked around lightly leaving traces of twinkling stardust behind him. He looks vulnerable, weak, sick. Someone like him who burst with sunlight didn’t deserve this.

And Lance is here, fevered and sick because of him. Keith had insisted on going on a dangerous mission, and Lance would not let him go alone. He had brushed it off and said he only went because he thought Keith was incompetent, but as he prepared himself he overheard him gently telling Hunk that he was coming because he believed in him.

Lance hadn’t been feeling well, something that wasn’t to Keith’s knowledge, and yet he went with Keith, fiercely protecting him like the sharpshooter he was, pushing aside everything else for Keith.

Lance had succeeded, Keith finished the mission safe and sound, but ended up worsening his own physical state. On their way back to the Black Lion, Keith was beaming about how well they were worked together, how great Lance was, and Lance was smiling, smiling so bright then he was collapsed on the floor. Needless to say Keith was beyond freaked out.

His whole life Keith told himself that he and love were incompatible. Love was not for him. No one could ever love him, he wasn’t built for it, it was in his very molecules that was chemically unresponsive to it. It was written in his DNA, wired so that he couldn’t.

And then Lance comes barging in and breaking down his closed walls and turns everything around.

Keith frantically cradled Lance in his arms, scooping him off the ground and holding him so close in fear that if he loosened his grip for one second, he’d lose Lance forever. He couldn’t lose anyone else.

Worry flooded him, as panic raced about his body and his heart beat furiously, adrenaline pumping because he couldn’t lose Lance. He incoherently spat out about how stupid Lance was for doing this, that he shouldn’t have come with him if he was sick, how none of this was worth Lance’s health as he drove Black home frantically

Then Lance let out a husky chuckle, looking at Keith with that stupid flirty, slick expression that rendered him so jealous he could barely function when it was used with other aliens.

But what came out of Lance’s mouth was said so differently, so purely and genuinely from how he spoke to those alien girls.

“You don’t get it, do you, Keith? You don’t get that I love you,” Lance said feverishly, but said in a tone so soft and loving that for a few moments Keith’s blood ran cold, all concept of time and space halting as his heart melted, a feeling that was the perfect culmination of flowers blooming and a warm fire starting in the fireplace.

Black suddenly tipped slightly as Keith lost control, of both the lion and his emotions. He let out a small gasp, his hands beginning to tremble lightly as his breath became short and shallow. Lance had just turned the world he once knew upside down.

And Keith has lost control.

Keith doesn’t remember what happens after that, but he knows that he lands back on the Castle and carries Lance’s fevered, sickly body out of the Lion as Coran and Hunk rush towards them in concern and shock, carrying Lance away to medbay.

His concept of time went whack as he tried to collect his thoughts. He disassociated from his own body, detached from his reality and walking aimlessly, like walking in a dream. His reality warped and fading, all he could hear was he loud thumping of his heart, and the word love echoing in his head like a mantra.

He doesn’t remember how he got here but he’s sitting by Lance’s side, watching him breathe in and out steadily, looking drained and exhausted. He looks so peaceful like this, and its one of the only times he’s been able to just look at Lance like this. He’s handsome despite the sickly features. He has clear skin, the cutest upturn to his nose and the lightest of freckles dotting it. So perfectly Lance.

He ponders for what seems to be hours about what Lance had said to him, what this was supposed to make him feel. Keith doesn’t know how to react, how to feel, he’s not good with people, he’s not Lance. He is so confused, out of his element and thrown out of the controlled mindset he had adapted for himself. Keith has effectively lost it. He’s been alone for so long he’s forgotten he’s real.

He tries to rationalize, trying to process everything so he his brain can finally shut up and end the endless rollercoaster it’s on. There’s so much going on in his brain that he needs to just take a moment and think way back, try and analyze the situation and understand how he’s feeling. Keith closes his eyes and thinks back to the past, searching for answers.

When Allura falls into his arms he is hit by a sense of deja vu, like he had been here in this situation before. But he hadn’t–Keith feels as if he hasn’t quite lived yet, he’d all watched it on a TV screen in yet another Hollywood romance. He’d seen it all before hundreds of times, it’s lost any sense of magical wonder. He wondered if he’d feel that rush or thrill of holding a girl in his arms like that, but he felt nothing at all.

Keith tries to feel something in that moment, forces himself to feel magical and like he could burst into song in the rain, feel butterflies dancing in his stomach, because the TV screen told him to, but he can’t. He wonders where the moment where he realises he wants to spend his whole life with her went, because it’s not here. All he feels is catching his friend, and he’s happy that he caught her, because he cares about Allura and wouldn’t want her hurt, but he thought he would feel more. Because that’s what he was told to do.

But Lance’s hand on his shoulder is like when the bus finally arrives after waiting so long in the freezing cold, that relief of the heated vehicle and the reassurance that yes, I am finally going home. He feels that wonderful heat rising to his cheeks, that firm whisper that keeps him together when he is sure he is going to fall apart. The way Lance looks at him melts Keith in the insides, and he just does not know what to do in the slightest. The TV screen never told him about this, never prepared him for it. He’s lost in Lance’s soft blue eyes, spotting this kindness and softness that cradles him gently, soothing his weary heart. Keith wonders why the TV screen never showed him this because this beat every single thing it had showed him.

Keith thinks about this as he watches Lance sleep, breathing heavily from a fever and curled up, looking so much softer and vulnerable. It was a new side to him he never knew was there, a side to him that was just as scared as he was, a side that didn’t feel the need to keep up a cheery facade constantly. A side to Lance Keith never would’ve thought would go on a mission with him despite how awful he felt, just to make sure Keith wasn’t alone, and to tell Keith that he believed in him.

It forced Keith to reevaluate everything he ever knew, because Keith was so convinced that he would always be alone, that no one could ever love someone who could not be understood, but here Lance was making a sacrifice for him. Keith didn’t think anyone could do such a thing. But Lance was here. Here Lance was, who didn’t quite understand every single little thing about Keith, but loved every single little thing about Keith and somehow saw past all of his crap and believed in him. It was too hard to believe. That perhaps he wasn’t so unlovable after all. It couldn’t be real. But Lance loved him.

Keith is suddenly hit with an epiphany.

A revelation that leaves his body cold and frozen, then a surge of warmth and he’s breathing heavily as his heart swells and wants to escape his chest and he’s shaking, because he’s in love with Lance. He’s in love with Lance too.

 _‘I love Lance,’_ Keith thinks over and over again, hoping that somehow it can finally sink in and he could suddenly have his eureka moment and know exactly  what to do. He is so confused and scared and excited and filled with a plethora of mixed, conflicting emotions but it feels so good and so right. Keith hates being wrong but right now he was wrong and he is so happy that he is. Keith is not unlovable, and he didn’t realise how much he needed to know that.

Keith wants to cry because he’s so happy, he’s shaking and tears are spilling from his eyes and he can’t help but reach out for Lance’s hand. He flinches just a little as his skin comes into contact with Lance’s, and a feeling of doubt begins to build slowly but he looks back at Lance and the mantra starts again. ‘I love Lance,’ The voice repeats over and over again but never quite loses its magic. He is assured again. He eases into it, intertwining his fingers with Lance’s and he feels so connected, it feels so right.

Lance stirs, and his eyes are fluttering open and they sparkle with delight when they see Keith’s form.

“I love you too,” Keith chokes, smothered with his own happy tears, a shaky smile playing on his lips. Shaky, but still so sure. So certain. He’s so confident in it he could yell it to the world at the top of his lungs or burst into song and dance until the sun rises.

and when Lance smiles at him the magical technicolor romance he saw on screen leaps out and becomes real. Very real, vivid and dancing and twirling and sparkling in all its rich colours as it comes to life and Keith can’t help but join in and bask in it.


End file.
